Amazon says Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 were the biggest shopping days in its history

Amazon says this year's Cyber Monday was the biggest shopping day in its 24-year history.

It was part of a record-breaking opening to a holiday season that also included Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Amazon said it sold "millions" more products from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday than it did during the same 2017 holiday period.

Amazon expressed the sales figures as a percentage increase rather than in dollar amounts.

Amazon says Cyber Monday smashed the company's records and was the biggest shopping day in its history.

The company did not release hard figures but said Tuesday in a press release that Monday was "the single biggest shopping day in the company's history with the most products ordered worldwide."

Amazon also said the period spanning Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday — which the company called the Turkey 5 — also broke company records for worldwide sales, with "millions" more products sold than in the same period in 2017.

"Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to break records on Amazon year-over-year, which tells us that customers love shopping for deals to kick off the holiday shopping season," Jeff Wilke, the CEO of Amazon worldwide consumer, said in a statement.

A $7.8 billion shopping day

2018's Cyber Monday was forecast to be the biggest day of shopping for the US at large. A report from Adobe Analytics predicted that US shoppers would spend $7.8 billion on Monday alone, an 18% hike from 2017.

The shape of holiday sales has long been changing, with spending spread more evenly over five days rather than crammed into 24 hours on Black Friday.